XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Video Card Review :: Test Setup and Procedures

Since we have used the AMD FX62 in past reviews and the system we have has ran so smoothly we decided to just stick with it and not switch over to the Intel Quad-Core for this review. If AMD does not come up with a better solution for us to use though, we will be forced by survival of the fittest to switch over to Intel's next generation X6700 Extreme next round. For now though, this system has proved itself time and time again and offers an SLI environment, an NVIDIA chipset motherboard by Asus, and the current flagship CPU of the AMD Athlon64 lineup.

Game Control

We had to modify our test system slightly to reflect the fact that the GeForce 8800GTX is going to be CPU limited in a lot of situations. A FX-62 is the fastest available AMD Athlon CPU currently available. The 8800GTX reviews required something a little different. We has to test the cards with the regular performance numbers in addition to testing the cards with 8X, 16X and 16XS to show performance levels throughout the spectrum of AA and AF. 16X is the new Coverage AA mode discussed earlier in the review. The tests took many days to accomplish and require huge amounts of man hours to not only run, but to calculate and average out the scores after they have been run three times. For that you most definitely need a stable running system.

Temperature

Power requirements are a bit high on this card, but no more so than the 7950GTX. The recommended power for an SLI system using a pair of GTX cards is a whopping 850 Watts. Lucky for us Tom from Enermax stopped by and saw what we were doing and have agreed to bring us over their new 1000W super beast for our SLI tests next week. The card did run a bit on the hot side 69 Celsius, hot all right, but not enough to make it un-functional though. We installed and tested the 8800GTX in a closed case system, which is the way most users will use the cards and more accurate for a real world testing environment. SLI memory is the best performance recommended memory for high-end desktop and workstation computers. Corsair was first to market this memory in conjunction with NVIDIA and others, it came with our FX62 test kit and it works very well with the ASUS M2N32-SLI motherboard. Regardless of all the hype surrounding the new Intel Quad-Core CPUs, this is one fast AMD system period.